Lt. Governor Sara Rodriguez campaign finance errors, impact on race

MILWAUKEE - Four weeks from today (July 14) - you'll decide. The primary for Wisconsin governor is set for Aug. 11, but with absentee ballots already in the mail, there’s still big questions about a candidate who revealed her earlier campaign finance documents included bogus numbers.

Less money for the campaign

What we know:

Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez said on Monday, July 13, her earlier campaign finance report double counted some donations, and didn’t include some expenses. That means it looked like she had much more money than she did.

"I think we still have that momentum. I think we're still moving forward. this is a bump in the road for the campaign, but we are going to be as honest and transparent as we can be," Rodriguez said in a Monday news conference.

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She said she has roughly $200,000 in the bank. She said that is actually hundreds of thousands less than she expected.

What they're saying:

"In my case, the treasurer always did the reports, but I always looked at them before they were filed. And I think every candidate, the buck stops with the candidate, regardless of who you hire or who you have as a volunteer doing your work as a treasurer, the buck stops with the candidate," said Joseph Czarnezki, a former state senator, former county clerk, former county board member and former city budget director.

"I do think it was extraordinary. I think that when we have the responsibility of having donor money come in to try to tell our story, tell our message as candidates, as campaigns, you've got to be able to keep track of that. And I think the order, the magnitude of the problem was much more than anyone expected," said Sachin Chheda, a Democratic strategist.

With less money in the campaign coffers, the $1 million ad buy the Rodriguez campaign previously announced didn’t happen.

The question now is, can the Rodriguez campaign survive?

"There's still four weeks left in this race. Anything can happen. There's seven candidates on the ballot. Two of them have said they're not running anymore," Chheda said.

"The primary is almost four weeks away, and a lot can happen in politics in four weeks. So I think it's difficult to say what will happen in the next four weeks on this race. I don't think it helped her, but again, how she reacts in the next few days and weeks I think will tell the story. As I said, everybody makes mistakes," Czarnezki said.

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The choice will be up to Wisconsin Democrats.

This Democratic primary changed in a noticeable way yesterday. Before, you wouldn't really see the Democratic candidates attacking each other. After these financial reporting problems, the campaigns of Joel Brennan, Kelda Roys and Mandela Barnes sharply criticized Rodriguez.

Portions of this article were formatted using A.I. FOX6’s Jason Calvi and an editor reviewed it for accuracy and tone prior to publishing.

Deep dive into the data

The backstory:

Click the article link below for a deep dive into the data, along with responses from other candidates.

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